Alex Hunter, moon rovers, and you

Almost 20 years ago, I met an old Boeing engineer named Alex Hunter. He was a mechanical engineer and designer; in aerospace work, those are the guys who figure out what materials to make something out of, how thick, how many screws, rivet placements, and on and on. Every engineer has his favorite toys to use in design; Alex just loved rivets because they simultaneously attach AND align two pieces of metal with great accuracy.

We were working on a project together and the conversation trailed back to the glory days of the Apollo program. (I’m a NASA brat.) Alex was one of the guys – I think the lead guy – assigned to the mechanical design of the lunar rovers. That’s a bigger deal than you might think at first glance; the rovers had to be designed and flown in less than 17 months, extremely light, and foldable in several dimensions to meet the space and weight limitations of the lunar lander.

After a year of frantic 14-hour days and multiple redesigns, Boeing had a rover that met NASA’s requirements. And Alex wanted to sign his work. He, and the two other guys who had poured heart, soul and lives into these things.

NASA doesn’t brag about this, but they are over-the-top control freaks on some things that are pure PR, not technical issues. They issued strict instructions about access to the six rovers, with an absolute “NO!!” regarding any non-spec markings.

So Alex and his friends slipped into the storage area one night with El Marko permanent markers, and signed all six rovers up inside the frames where NASA wouldn’t easily find the forbidden markings.

Some nights, when I look up at the tropical moon overhead, I think about the three rovers that are still up there. They launched from here, just across the Florida peninsula from me. I think of Alex, and I’m sad because I miss him. But I smile, because his little story in the grand epic of the space race is a picture of what we all want: to create, to sign our creation, and delight in it. Be it a fiery and awesome spectacle or a silent wonder, we love to see our creations fulfill their intended glory. They ride the heavens of our dreams.

I suppose we’re this way because we’re crafted in the image of God, the arch-Creator, the arch-signer, the arch-delighter. We’re signed by him.

Wonderful as it is to birth a new system, or product, or book, it’s sweeter still to show people the glory God placed in them, and autographed, for his own delight. “...for your own good pleasure,” as the ancient liturgical prayer puts it. And that stuff is the stuff we were designed for, in messy but beautiful fellowship (koinonia) together.
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